The Professionals Blu-ray Release

[iceman]

Sony Pictures Home Entertainment has announced that a trio western films are being released on Blu-ray, all due to hit store shelves on June 10th, just in time for Father's Day. First up is the 1966 Burt Lancaster film 'The Professionals'. Video will be presented as 2.35:1 1080p AVC accompanied by a 5.1 Dolby TrueHD soundtrack. Extras include three featurettes ("The Professionals - A Classic", "Burt Lancaster: A Portrait", and "Memories from The Professionals").

Announcement: https://www.blu-ray.com/news/?id=1162

Movie info: https://www.blu-ray.com/movies/movies.php?id=138

[Blu Titan]

This is a very nice addition.

[#Darren]

Looks good. Great cast. Good to see some lesser known quality flics from the classic actors era getting released on Blu.

[LeoneFan]

Finally something worth spending money on, can't wait.

[Secretagentnumber6]

One of the very best westerns ever made. I highly recommend this one. I will finally be adding it to my collection.

[desmond]

Very good movie...

[Brian Cash]

Great movie hopefully the transfer is good

[cartman781]

Man when I seen this I got all excited thinking it was The Professional with Jean Reno

[blu_brian]

Is the blu ray an edited version? I just picked a copy and I'm pretty sure there's a scene missing in the first 30 minutes that showed

[Show spoiler] how Burt Lancaster's character lost his pants.

I thought the version I saw on Starz showed the scene

All I can find is a run time of 117 minutes.

[The Great Owl]

Earlier this evening, I watched my Sony Blu-ray of The Professionals.

The Professionals stars Lee Marvin, Burt Lancaster, Robert Ryan, and Woody Strode as gunmen who are hired by a wealthy rancher to rescue his beautiful wife, played by the extraordinary Claudia Cardinale (Once Upon a Time in the West) from a Mexican revolutionary, played by none other than Jack Palance. This western, which was filmed in Death Valley and in the Valley of Fire State Park, is a grandiose Technicolor production that, combined with the strength of the cast, kept me fascinated. Lee Marvin has always been one of my favorite actors, and he shines here, although Burt Lancaster steals the show as a tough explosives expert who has a touch of wistful romanticism. There's a lot more to the simple plot than meets the eye, and I loved finding out that all of these characters, even Palance's villain, have more depth to them than I expected. This is a great film all around.

The Blu-ray transfer is quite gorgeous, with its naturally filmic look, and the strong audio presentation brings an amazing score to the forefront.

[TerryMalloy]

"The Professionals" is my favorite western of all time, and I'm very satisfied with the blu-ray with one notable exception: there are subtitles included for ALL of the Spanish dialogue which CANNOT be turned off by the player.

I've seen the movie numerous times in the theater and on other home video media and those subtitles, which I find quite distracting and very unnecessary, were NEVER included until the blu-ray release.

I know that this is the longest of long shots, but does anyone know of another blu-ray version of the movie, perhaps a different Region or one distributed by another source in another country, that does NOT have this issue?

Assistance would be greatly appreciated if anyone does have such knowledge.

[Mose Harper]

As a big fan of the film myself, I share your annoyance and frustration. I brought this issue up years ago and just met shoulder shrugs from respected figures who were praising the release.

I know of no other editions that rectify this problem. if you have an Oppo, at least you can move the subs out of the picture area, and then use a matte to obscure them. a very labor intensive work around...but they are that big of an annoyance that its worth it to me on the occasions I actually watch the film.

[TerryMalloy]

Originally Posted by Mose Harper

As a big fan of the film myself, I share your annoyance and frustration. I brought this issue up years ago and just met shoulder shrugs from respected figures who were praising the release.

I know of no other editions that rectify this problem. if you have an Oppo, at least you can move the subs out of the picture area, and then use a matte to obscure them. a very labor intensive work around...but they are that big of an annoyance that its worth it to me on the occasions I actually watch the film.

Actually I do have an Oppo, and I've tried to, as you indicated, move the subs out of the picture area, but I was never totally successful. It seemed to work on some of the subtitles, but others showed up and I never could figure out how to get it to work 100%.

I am glad to hear that there is someone else who recognizes this issue. I even tried contacting Sony years ago but it seemed like they didn't give a damn or, even more likely, even know what the hell I was talking about.

But I do have one solution that I hesitate to use - I still have the LaserDisc, which I guess I'll have to hold on to forever since it's unlikely that there will ever be a blu-ray fix.

[Johnzilla2179]

I have no burned-in subtitles for the Spanish dialogue on my copy of the Blu (unless my player is somehow blocking them). I have the corresponding DVD edition of The Professionals which did have this problem, however.

On an unrelated note, any word on a 4K version?

[Memo from Turner]

Originally Posted by spidervenom1992

I have no burned-in subtitles for the Spanish dialogue on my copy of the Blu (unless my player is somehow blocking them). I have the corresponding DVD edition of The Professionals which did have this problem, however.

On an unrelated note, any word on a 4K version?

If you do indeed have a BD copy of The Professionals that does NOT have burned-in subtitles, I'd very much like to know which version it is, because that's an issue that has plagued me ever since I made the purchase.

[NeilZ]

When is Sony going to give us a 4k UHD for this.

[Jorvic]

Bought the Blu-ray a few weeks ago.

It's a beautifully shot Western.

[Doomhunter]

Excellent western adventure film with Lancaster, Palance, Marvin, and Cardinale. Too bad Robert Ryan didn’t have much to do though. For that matter, neither did Woody Strode. So really a very small cast in essence. The interesting thing about this film is that the ending turned out completely different than I would have normally expected from this type / era of western.

[gotBlu]

Originally Posted by NeilZ

When is Sony going to give us a 4k UHD for this.

i am just watching this blu ray for the first time. The PQ/detail is amazing to me, better than some 4k's i have.

[Ozym]

Now $8 amazon.